“I quote others only in order the better to express myself.”

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.

Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.

If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.

Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.

The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.

There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.

Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.

Christ’s resurrection not only gives you hope for the future; it gives you hope to handle your scars right now.

The only thing I command is respect.

The only way to do it is to do it: by writing, writing, writing.

… that, in a few years, all great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals.

The wise only possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.

Elegance is no longer significant; clothes have to be fun.

Only indiscriminate love can make us free.

We deny your internationalism, because it is a luxury which only the upper classes can afford.